Glimpses from the eternal

Our chickens rushed out of their coop this morning, eager to rummage in the morning light. The air is cool and fresh. We are about to experience a swell of heat, so I gladly take it in. Some folk are camping in the woods, among them a Polish forester yearning for some sense of home, placidly staring into a small campfire while his friends are waking up.

I realize nature keeps me in check as long as I allow her to be part of my life. She balances me out, pulling me into an experience of beauty that is always now and nothing but now. Anything else will draw me away from her, and thoughts can be tenacious in that way.

The way I see it, there are two options. My thoughts either follow the natural order of things, and my thinking emanates from an indescribable feeling of awe and wonder, ordained glimpses from the eternal, prescribing what life can be like. Or I linger on the inevitable suffering I face, be it right now, in the past, or in an uncertain future.

Life is fair only in a universal kind of way, offering no guarantees whoever we are, challenging every last one of us in times of tribulation, sooner or later. Hence, I am grateful for the rare gift I currently receive: to live in peace and prosperity, a simple life close to nature.

Quite often, though, I seek something I want and choose to be unhappy about not having it. I worry, too, about having to sacrifice part of myself to fulfil basic needs. And I worry mostly about needing to sacrifice my time. One of my worst fears is to feel forced by circumstances to spend my time alive doing something meaningless. Time is my most cherished gift and a commodity I am often unwilling to trade if I see no value in the exchange. Ironically, time is not in my possession at all. I might have another fifty to sixty years if I am fortunate, or far less than that.

Trust is never a given

Some darker part of me feels rushed and contracted when I think about wasting my time. A feeling of lack is always lurking, shaping itself in murky thoughts that reign over me in weak moments when I do not want to experience what I am facing.

Whenever we experience fierce resistance to our circumstances, trust is not a given but an exercise. Attempts to evoke trust will likely feel inauthentic, condemned by our angry thoughts as unwelcome intrusions because our suffering is real. Yet a mere glimmer of trust has immense power. Light can seep through the cracks in a darkened room, but not vice versa.

If we find ourselves far removed from the natural order of things, immersed in our struggle, a glimmer of trust may be our only way out. Evoking trust is a decisive practice, especially when we do not feel like it. It puts us back on the right track, back to that indescribable wonder of being alive.